Maltose, or malt sugar, is a reducing sugar widely used as a nutrient or sweetener in the food industry. It also is used as culture media and stabilizer for polysulfides. It is primarily obtained from the enzymatic action of diastase or B-amylase on starch.
Starch hydrolysate may contain approximately 72% maltose, 1% glucose and 27% higher polysaccharides. At the present time, there are no known methods for commercially extracting the maltose present in starch hydrolysate from polysaccharides having a degree of polymerization (DP) greater than the glucose therein. However, in British Patent No. 1,585,369 a process is disclosed for separating a monosaccharide, such as fructose or glucose, from an oligosaccharide, such as maltose, using X zeolites exchanged with Ba or K cations or Y zeolites exchanged with Ba, Sr, Ca, Cs, Na or NH.sub.4. However, the process of the British patent is not capable of separating maltose from glucose and a polysaccharide.